A Questionnaire on the Organisations of Big Capital[1]

Published:ProsveshcheniyeNo. 5–7, April-June 1912.

      Signed:V. Ilyin.

      Published according to the text inProsveshcheniye.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[1975],

      Moscow,Volume 18,

      pages56-72.Translated:Stepan ApresyanTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

TheIndustry and Economics Department of the Imperial Russian Technical
Society sent out a questionnaire on “public organisations of the
commercial and industrial class in Russian”, or rather on the
organisations of big capital. The results of the questionnaire are now set forth
in

Mr. Gushka’s[2]bookRepresentative Organisations of the
Commercial and Industrial Class in Russia(St. Petersburg, 1912). Both the
material contained in the book and the conclusions, which the author indicates
in fairly definite terms, deserve serious attention.

Asa matter of fact, the questionnaire of the Technical Society dealt with the
“representative” organisations of capitalists, which make up
approximately 80 per cent of all the organisations. About 15 per cent of the
organisations are cartels, trusts and syndicates, nearly 5 per cent are
associations of employers, and the rest are stock-exchange committees, boards of
congresses, etc. These latter organisations are very fond of calling themselves
“representative” Their job is to influence government bodies.

Theemployers’ associations, in Mr. Gushka’s opinion, conduct a
“direct” class struggle against the wage-workers, whereas the
representative organisations conduct an “indirect” class
struggle—a “struggle against other classes by exerting pressure on
the state power and on public opinion”.

Thatterminology is wrong, of course. It at once betrays one of the principal
defects which Mr. Gushka has in common with most representatives of
“professorial”, bourgeois politicaleconomy. On the face of it, he accepts the concept of the class struggle; on
the face of it, the class struggle serves as the basis of his
investigation. Actually, however, that concept is narrowed down
and distorted. Indeed, from what Mr. Gushka says, the struggle of the
capitalists against the wage-workers within the framework of a given political
system is a “direct” class struggle, while the strugglefar the
political system itselfis an “indirect” class
struggle! What about the struggle for “state power”
itself—where does that belong?

Butwe shall have occasion to deal with this fundamental fault of Mr. Gushka’s
“world outlook” in the proper place. The value of his work is not in
its theory, but in the summary of facts it offers. The data on organisations of
the preponderant type are at any rate of considerable interest.

Thetotal number of “representative” organisations of big capital in
Russia in 1910 is given as 143. Seventy-one of them were stock-exchange
societies with their committees. Then came 14 committees of commerce and
manufacture, three merchants’ boards, 51 organisations in the “combined”
group (congresses and their boards, advisory bureaus, etc.), and four
organisations of an indefinite type. The questionnaire was answered by only
62 organisations, or less than half the total. Out of the 51 organisations
in the “combined” group, which is the most interesting, 22 answered the
questionnaire.

Thedata on the time the organisations were founded are
characteristic. Of the 32 stock-exchange committees which answered the
questionnaire, 9 were founded in the last century, from 1800 to 1900, 5 in
the four years 1901-04, 9in the two years of
revolution—1905-06—and 9 in the period 1907 to 1910.

“Here,”writes Mr. Gushka, “we clearly see the effect of the impetus
   which the social movement of the stormy year 1905 lent the process of the
   self-organisation of the representatives of capital.”

“Here,”writes Mr. Gushka, “we clearly see the effect of the impetus
   which the social movement of the stormy year 1905 lent the process of the
   self-organisation of the representatives of capital.”

Ofthe 22 organisations in the combined group, only 7 came into being
during the period 1870 to 1900, 2 from 1901 to 1904, 8in the two years
of revolution—1905-06—and 5 from 1907 to 1910. All those
“congress boards” of representatives of industry in general—mine
owners, oil industrialists, and so on and so forth—are a product chiefly
of the period of revolution and counter-revolution.

Theorganisations are divided according to industries as follows. The
group of stock-exchange committees is predominantly mixed: these committees
usually unite all the branches of industry and commerce of the area
concerned. In the group of committees of commerce and manufacture, the
textile industry is in the forefront. In the main, combined, group, almost
half the organisations represent not commerce, but industry—mining and
metallurgy, to be specific.

“Itis this group of industries (mining and metallurgy) that
constitutes the economic basis of the organisations of Russia’s modern
industrial ‘guard’,” writes Mr. Gushka, who has a slight weakness for
using a “lofty style” in speaking of the subject of his investigation.

Onlyin the case of a part of the organisations was it possible to
establish the total turnover or output for the entire branch of commerce or
industry to which the organisation in question belongs. The total thus
obtained is 1,570 million rubles, of which 1,319 million rubles belongs to
members of the organisations. Consequently, the organised represent 84
per cent of the total. The turnover of 3,134 members of organisations
amounted to 1,121 million rubles, or an average of 358,000 rubles per
member. The number of workers employed by 685 members of organisations is
approximately 219,000 (on p. 111, the author mistakenly puts it at
319,000), or an average of more than 300 workers per member.

Itis clear that we are dealing here with organisations ofbigcapital, or even thebiggestcapital, to be exact. Mr. Gushka is
fully aware of this, for he points out, for instance, that only the really
big and biggest merchants and industrialists are admitted as members into
the stock-exchange committees and the committees of commerce and
manufacture, and that the congresses of representatives of industry and
commerce are made up of the “biggest” capitalist undertakings.

Thatis why the author is wrong when he refers, in the title of his
book, to organisations “of the commercial and industrialclassin
Russia” That is incorrect. Here again the author narrows down the concept
of class. Actually, Mr. Gushka is dealing with astratum, not with
a class. Sure enough, the stratum of the biggest capitalists economically
dominates all the other strata, which it unquestionablyoverwhelms by the size of its turnover. This is beyond doubt. Nevertheless,
it is a stratum, and not a class. Thus, for instance, there is a vast
distance between the political role of the representative organisations of
this stratum and its political domination, as well as between its political
domination and that of the commercial and industrial class.

Inthis connection, we must point out the following argument of
Mr. Gushka’s: “We in Russia,” he writes, “are accustomed to applying a
very large scale to define what is called a big or a small undertaking, in
view of the well known extraordinary concentration of capital in our
country, surpassing the concentration of capital even in Germany....”

Thecomparison with Germany is wrong. For instance, in the Urals there
are very few small undertakings, if any, in the mining and metallurgical
industries for reasons of an entirely distinctive nature—due to the
absence of full freedom for industry and to the survivals of
medievalism. And our official (or, what is the same thing, our Narodnik)
distinction between factory and “handicraft” industries—does it not
make our industrial statistics incomparable with the German statistics?
Does it not very often mislead the observer by speaking of “extraordinary
concentration” in Russia and obscuring the “extraordinarily”scattered characterof the countless small peasant undertakings?

Itis interesting to note some of the data provided by the
questionnaire on the activity of the representative organisations of the
biggest capital. For instance, the author gives a summary of the
information about their budgets. The budgets of the 22 organisations in
the combined group show a total income of 3,950,000 rubles, and the total
income of all the organisations is 7.25 million rubles. “This annual
budget of our 56 organisations,” writes Mr. Gushka, “amounting to 7.25
million rubles, would probably be 50 or 100 per cent higher if the
financial reports of the other organisations, those not covered by our
questionnaire, were included.”

However,more than a half of this budget, namely, 4.5 million rubles,
is spent on business and on charity. Onpurely representational functions, the 56 organisations spend 2.7 million
rubles. “Most of the answers or financial reports put at the head of this
expenditure on representation the salaries of the personnel, then the
renting of premises. In 64.4 per cent of the organisations, the greatest
part of the expenditure goes for maintenance of personnel, and in 26.7
per cent of them it goes for premises.”

Thesefigures, in view of the turnover of 1,319 million rubles in the
capitalist associations covered by the investigation, show that the
expenditure is very modest, so that Mr. Gushka’s pompous conclusion that
the budget of expenditure is an “index of the financial might[author’s italics] of the representative organisations of the commercial
and industrial bourgeoisie in Russia” again betrays his inordinate
fondness for big words.

Theauthor devotes Chapter IX of his hook to the “third element”,
i.e., the intelligentsia in the service of the capitalist associations. It
appears that 29 stock-exchange committees listed 77 representatives of the
third element as their employees; the 22 organisations in the combined
group listed 180 such employees. Most of the answers speak of 2 to 4
representatives of the third element per organisation. Since capitalist
associations often understate this kind of data, the author thinks it
probable that “the representative organisations of capital have in their
service, holding key posts, a host [!!] of intellectuals numberingat
least a thousand persons”—secretaries, accountants, statisticians,
legal advisers, etc.

Really,it does not take much to set Mr. Gushka talking about a
“host”.

Thepublishing activity of the capitalist associations is characterised
by the following figures. In addition to the answers to the questionnaire,
there accumulated a small library of 288 volumes—the proceedings of
congresses, reports, statutes and memoranda—which have never been on
sale.

Nineorganisations publish periodicals:Mining and Smelting, Oil,
Industry and Commerce, Bulletin of the Russian Association of Distillery
Owners, etc. The author gives the total number of issues of these
publications as 2,624 “volumes”, to which he adds 452 volumes of
“proceedings”,annual reports, etc., as well as 333 volumes of non-periodical
publications. Mr. Gushka puts the total at 3,409 “volumes”, which he
describes as “impressive”. The total number of publications probably
amounts to 4,000–5,000 volumes.

“Itmay be said without exaggeration that a veritable treasure lies
   buried in that library, exclaims Mr. Gushka, “a wealth of material for the
   study of the anatomy and physiology, if we may say so, of the big
   bourgeoisie in Russia.... Unless we study this valuable material, we cannot
   form a proper idea of the balance of the dominant social forces in Russia,
   and more particularly of the social nature and role of Russian state power
   both before and after 1905.”

“Itmay be said without exaggeration that a veritable treasure lies
   buried in that library, exclaims Mr. Gushka, “a wealth of material for the
   study of the anatomy and physiology, if we may say so, of the big
   bourgeoisie in Russia.... Unless we study this valuable material, we cannot
   form a proper idea of the balance of the dominant social forces in Russia,
   and more particularly of the social nature and role of Russian state power
   both before and after 1905.”

Mr.Gushkamakes very frequent excursions of this kind into the sphere
of the social nature and role of Russian state power. They merit special
consideration because of the importance of the question, and because it is
misrepresented by the author, who exaggerates things beyond measure and for
that very reason vows in passing that he speaks “without exaggeration”.

“Thecentre of gravity of the activity of the
   organisations under survey,” writes Mr. Gushka, “as representative
   organisations, i.e., organisations devoted to representing the interests of
   the industrial and commercial class, is naturally in the sphere offormulating the positionof the representatives of this class on
   various questions concerning its interests, and ofdefending this
   positionby various means.”

“Thecentre of gravity of the activity of the
   organisations under survey,” writes Mr. Gushka, “as representative
   organisations, i.e., organisations devoted to representing the interests of
   the industrial and commercial class, is naturally in the sphere offormulating the positionof the representatives of this class on
   various questions concerning its interests, and ofdefending this
   positionby various means.”

Undoubtedly,that is exactly where the “centre of gravity” lies. The
questionnaire allots much space to questions about the items discussed by
the organisations of the capitalists and to the petitions they filed. In
summarising the information obtained, the author singles out a long list of
what, in his opinion, are “questions of ageneralnature”. The
most important questions are grouped as follows:

(a) workers’ insurance, public holidays, etc.;

(b) income tax, taxes on enterprises, etc.;

(c) tariff policy;

(d) transport;

(e) joint-stock companies, credit, etc.;

(f) consulates abroad, statistics, the organisation of a mining department;

(g) participation of the merchant class in the Zemstvo institutions, in the
Council of State, in the preliminary discussion of government Bills, etc.

Inthis connection, Mr. Gushka draws the following conclusion:

“In any event, as may be gathered from the enumerated groups of questions
and petitions, our organisations have a very wide sphere of activity....”
On reading such a conclusion, one cannot help stopping to see whether by
any chance the word,nothas been omitted. For it is obvious that
the sphere of activity indicated by the author isnotwide at
all. But it is certainly not a slip of the pen we have here; the trouble
comes from the essential “pattern” of the author’s mentality. “It would
be difficult to name any more or less important field of the social and
political life of the country that is outside the sphere of activity of the
representative organisations of capital,” he maintains.

Incredible,but true: Mr. Gushka in all seriousness presents us with
this flagrant untruth, which he repeats in a dozen different ways!

“Itwould be difficult to name....” What about the electoral law? Or
the agrarian question? Is it possible that these are not “important fields
of the social and political life of the, country”?

Mr.Gushkalooks at “social and political life” from the narrow
peep-hole of amerchant’sstandpoint. He cannot for the life of
him understand that his absolute statements testify to narrowness, and
certainly not to breadth. The questions raised by the merchants are narrow
because they concernonlythe merchants. The capitalists donotrise to questions ofgeneral politicalimportance. “Admission of representatives of industry and commerce” into
local or central institutions of one sort or another is the limit of the
“courage” they show in their petitions. As to how these institutions are
to be organisedin general, that is something theyare
unableto think of. They accept the institutions which have taken
shape at someone else’s bidding, and beg for a place in them. They
slavishly accept the political basis created by some other class, and on
this basis “petition” for the interests of their social-estate,theirgroup,their stratum, unable even in this sphere to rise to a
broad under standing of the interests of the whole of theirclass.

Mr.Gushka,who glaringly distorts the facts, slips into a tone of
sheer praise. “The energetic and insistent pressure brought to bear upon
government bodies,” he writes. “Ourorganisations” “perfectly [!!] understand this themselves,” ...  “The
organisations of big capital have developed into a regularlobbywhich actually exerts perhaps a greater influence upon legislation than the
Duma, the more so”—the author tries to be witty—“as

Article 87[3]does not apply to the capitalist parliament, and the
organisations of capital have never been purposely dissolved for three
days.”...

Thiswitticism is an obvious indication of the boundless conceited
narrow-mindedness of the big-wigs of industry and of their eulogist,
Gushka. A minor detail, a mere trifle, has been overlooked: the Duma raises
questions concerning the entire state administration and all classes, being
an institution of the whole state, while the organisations of the merchant
big-wigs consider it courageous to raise questions concerningonlythe merchants,onlythe rights of the merchants.

Mr.Gushkagoes to the length of quoting the statement, made by the Ufa
Stock-Exchange Committee in its report for 1905–06, that “the government
itself, by a series of fundamental measures to reform the stock-exchange
institutions, is selecting ...worthy assistants for itself”, and
he calls this statement “correct”, puts the last phrase in italics, and
speaks of “real and active co-operation with the government”.

Onreading such stuff one cannot help thinking of the German wordLobhudelei—grovelling adulation, or adulatory grovelling. To
speak with a smug countenance—in 1905–06—of “fundamental measures to
reform—the stock-exchange institutions”! Why, this is the viewpoint of a
flunkey whom the master has permitted to “consult” with the cook about
arrangements for dinner, etc., calling the two of them his “worthy
assistants”.

Howclose Mr. Gushka is to this point of view can be seen from that
subsection of Chapter XV dealing with the results of the petitions of the
organisations, which he has entitled “Losing Positions”. “It cannot be
denied,” we read there, “that there areseveral fieldsin which
the petitions and demands of the representatives of capital do come up
against government resistance.” Then follow examples in this sequence:

(1) state-owned forests—the state is itself engaged in the timber
industry;

(2) railway tariffs—the railways are run by the state itself;

(3) the question of representation in the Zemstvos; and

(4) the question of representation in theDuma and in the Council of State. “In both cases,” says the author,
referring to the last two questions, “the effect of the close ties between
the bureaucracy and the other ruling class—the big landowners—makes
itself felt, of course.”

“Butif we leave out the few above-mentioned
   questions,” continues the happy Mr. Gushka, “then it must be admitted
   that in all the other fields ... the data furnished by our questionnaire
   show the position of the commercial and industrial class to be a winning
   one.”

“Butif we leave out the few above-mentioned
   questions,” continues the happy Mr. Gushka, “then it must be admitted
   that in all the other fields ... the data furnished by our questionnaire
   show the position of the commercial and industrial class to be a winning
   one.”

Isthis not a real gem? The losing position is the timber business,
railways, the Zemstvos and parliament. But “if we leave out the few
above-mentioned questions”, we shall have a winning position!

Andin the “conclusion” of his book, where he takes up the cudgels
against the “traditional prejudice” about the lowliness and lack of
rights of the commercial and industrial class, Mr. Gushka rises to what may
be called patheticLobhudelei:

“Itis not as a lowly class lacking rights that the
   commercial and industrial bourgeoisie sits at the table of a Russian
   statehood, but as a welcome guest and collaborator, as a ‘worthy
   assistant’ of the state power, occupying a prominent place both by
   established custom and by law, by recorded right. Nor is it since
   yesterday that it has occupied this place.”

“Itis not as a lowly class lacking rights that the
   commercial and industrial bourgeoisie sits at the table of a Russian
   statehood, but as a welcome guest and collaborator, as a ‘worthy
   assistant’ of the state power, occupying a prominent place both by
   established custom and by law, by recorded right. Nor is it since
   yesterday that it has occupied this place.”

Thiswould fit perfectly into an official. speech delivered by a
Krestovnikov, an Avdakov, a Tiesenhausen or their like at a dinner given
by a Minister. It is this kind of speeches, written exactly in this kind of
language, that are familiar to every Russian. The only question that arises
is: how are we to describe a “scientist” who, while laying claim to a
“scientific” analysis of a serious questionnaire, introduces into his
writings the after-dinner speeches of servile merchants as “the conclusion
to be drawn from the questionnaire”?

“Wehave inherited from the ‘good old times’,”
   continues Mr. Gushka, “a view which has acquired the stability of a
   prejudice, namely, that capitalist Russia is characterised by the
   contradiction that the big bourgeoisie, while dominatingeconomically, remains enslavedpolitically. The whole
   of the evidence supplied by our questionnaire deals a telling blow at
   this traditional notion.”

“Wehave inherited from the ‘good old times’,”
   continues Mr. Gushka, “a view which has acquired the stability of a
   prejudice, namely, that capitalist Russia is characterised by the
   contradiction that the big bourgeoisie, while dominatingeconomically, remains enslavedpolitically. The whole
   of the evidence supplied by our questionnaire deals a telling blow at
   this traditional notion.”

Itrequires unbounded vulgarisation of Marxism, whose terminology
Mr. Gushka makes a show of using, to regard a questionnaire on the
organisations of capitalists as capable of supplying “material” about the
political enslavement ofthe bourgeoisie by the autocracy and the landlords. The author hardly
touches on the material which supplies the real answer to this question,
nor could lie have touched on it so long as he kept within the limits of
the questionnaire.

Thequestionnaire, which touches on one aspect of the life of our
bourgeoisie,confirms, in fact, that the latter is politically
enslaved. It shows that the bourgeoisie is making economic progress, that
certain particular rights of the bourgeoisie are being extended, that it is
becoming ever more organised as a class and is playing an increasing role
in political life. But the very fact that these changes are taking place
makesstill more profoundthe contradiction between the retention
of 0.99 of the political power by the autocracy and the landlords, on the
one hand, and the growing economic might of the bourgeoisie, on the other.

Mr.Gushka,who makes a show of using Marxist terminology, actually
shares the standpoint of an ordinary social-liberal. It is one of Russia’s
specific features, or maladies if you will, that this liberalism is
embellished with Marxist phrases. Adopting the standpoint of liberalism,
Mr. Gushka came up against the question of the social nature of the state
power in Russia. But he did not appreciate, even approximately, the vast
scope and significance of this question.

Theclass nature of the state power in Russia has under gone a serious
change since 1905. That change has been in a bourgeois direction. The Third
Duma,Vekhiliberalism, and a number of other signs are evidence
of a new “step in the transformation” of our old state power “into a
bourgeois monarchy”. But while taking one more step along this new path,
itremains the old power, and this only goes to increase the sum
total of political contradictions. Mr. Gushka, who came up against a
serious question, revealed his inability to deal with it.

Inanalysing the material of a rather special
questionnaire, Mr. Gushka touched on another highly important question of
principle, which is worth dwelling on specially. It is the question of
“The Role of 1905”, as the title of a subsection of Chapter XIII in
Mr. Gushka’s book reads.

Question41of the questionnaire, referring to the number of meetings
of the executive body of each organisation during each of the past five
years, was intended to ascertain the extent to which the activities of the
organisations increased in 1905. The material provided by the answers to
the questionnaire “has, not”—to quote Mr. Gushka—“revealed any such
phenomenon in the life of our organisations”, that is, any appreciable
increase in activity.

“Andthat is understandable,” Mr. Gushka comments.

Well,how does he explain this phenomenon?

The“employers’” associations, he argues, were bound to
have increased their activity in 1905, in view of the increased strike
movement.

“Theorganisations of a purely representative type,
   however,” continues Mr. Gushka, “were, to a certain extent, in an
   entirely different position: their chief contractor, the government, was on
   the defensive throughout 1905; it had very little faith in itself and in
   spired hardly any confidence in others. In that ‘crazy’ year, ‘when the
   authorities withdrew’, it seemed to all, including the industrialists
   (particularly at the end of the year), that the old ‘authorities’ would
   never come back.“Thatis why the representative organisations of capital
   had no reason in those days for intensifying their activity as
   representative bodies in dealing with the government authorities.”

“Theorganisations of a purely representative type,
   however,” continues Mr. Gushka, “were, to a certain extent, in an
   entirely different position: their chief contractor, the government, was on
   the defensive throughout 1905; it had very little faith in itself and in
   spired hardly any confidence in others. In that ‘crazy’ year, ‘when the
   authorities withdrew’, it seemed to all, including the industrialists
   (particularly at the end of the year), that the old ‘authorities’ would
   never come back.

“Thatis why the representative organisations of capital
   had no reason in those days for intensifying their activity as
   representative bodies in dealing with the government authorities.”

Thisexplanation won’t hold water. If the “authorities” had really
“withdrawn”, the withdrawal of the old political authorities would
inevitably have resulted in the new economic authorities increasing their
activity and becoming new political authorities. If the government was
mainly on the defensive, how could the “collaborator and worthy
assistant” of that government (as Mr. Gushka describes the commercial and
industrial bourgeoisie) help increasingitsactivity to defend
that government and itself? Our author has not at all thought out what he
was saying. He confines himself to a mere collection of words—the most
current and customary ones. Perhaps he feels that the question at issue is
an extremely important one on the answer to which depends, or with the
answer to which is closely linked, the answer to the more general question
of the political role of the bourgeoisie, and he shrank from tackling an
important question in earnest—fled from it, as it were.

Reflecton the following statement of the author on the same
point—about the role of 1905:

“Neitherdid the organisations of capital feel inclined
   to meet often in order to formulate their attitude towards the social and
   political problems that preoccupied the whole country at the time. Pushed
   into the background by the sweeping tide of the popular movement, they
   preferred to bide their time, to wait for the results of the struggle
   seething around them. Towards the end, when the ‘authorities’ unmistakably
   revealed their inclination to ‘come back’, the organisations of the
   commercial and industrial class likewise began gradually to resume their
   representative activity in its usual form and degree of intensity.”

“Neitherdid the organisations of capital feel inclined
   to meet often in order to formulate their attitude towards the social and
   political problems that preoccupied the whole country at the time. Pushed
   into the background by the sweeping tide of the popular movement, they
   preferred to bide their time, to wait for the results of the struggle
   seething around them. Towards the end, when the ‘authorities’ unmistakably
   revealed their inclination to ‘come back’, the organisations of the
   commercial and industrial class likewise began gradually to resume their
   representative activity in its usual form and degree of intensity.”

“Theorganisations of capital” were “pushed into the back ground by
the sweeping tide of the popular movement”. Very well! Only, Mr. Gushka is
again giving no thought to what he is saying. Against whom was the sweeping
tide of the popular movement directed? Against the old regime. How then was
it possible for the “collaborator and worthy assistant” of that regime to
be pushed into thebackground? If it really were a collaborator
and worthy assistant, then the greater its economic strength, which was
independent of the old organisation of political power, the more vigorously
it should have pushed into the foreground.

Howwas it possible for the “collaborator and worthy assistant” of
the old regime to find itself in a position where it “preferred to bide
its time”?

Mr.Gushkaset out to battle against the theory of the political
enslavement of the economically dominating bourgeoisie, and got into a
muddle the moment he tackled the job! Contrary to his view, the “theory”
which he promised to demolish is reinforced by the course of events in
1905.

Bothbig commercial and industrial capital and the Russian bourgeois
liberals, far from “biding their time” in 1905, took up a very definite
counter-revolutionary position. The facts testifying to this are too well
known. But there is no doubt that, compared with the forces of absolutism
and the landlord class, the very big capital was to a certain extent
“pushed into the background”.

Buthow could it happen that in a bourgeois revolution the peak of
“the sweeping tide of the popular movement” pushed the bourgeoisie into
the background more than any other class?

Ithappened because only by completely distorting the concept of
“bourgeois revolution” can one arrive at the view that the latter
declines when the bourgeoisie recoils from it. It was bound to happen,
because the chief driving force of the bourgeois revolution in Russia is
the proletariat and the peasantry, with the bourgeoisie vacillating. Being
politically enslaved by the landlords and absolutism, the bourgeoisie, on
the other hand, takes a counter-revolutionary stand when the working-class
movement grows in intensity. Hence its vacillations and its retreat into
the “background”. It is both against and for the old order. It is willing
to help the old regime against the workers, but it is perfectly capable of
“establishing” itself, and even of strengthening and expanding its
domination without any landlords and without any remnants of the old
political regime. This is clearly shown by the experience of America and
other countries.

Itis easy to understand, therefore, why the peak of “the sweeping
tide of the popular movement” and the greatest weakening of the old regime
can cause the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie to retreat hurriedly
into the “background”. This bourgeoisie is precisely the class which can
be neutralised in the struggle between the new and the old, between
democracy and medievalism; for, while it feels more at home, at ease and
comfortable by the side of the old, this class can also exercise its rule
in the event of the most complete victory of the new.

Inspeaking of the questionnaire of the Imperial Russian
Technical Society, we cannot pass over in silence an article by
Mr. A. Yermansky in Nos. 1–2 and 3 of the liquidationistNasha
Zarya. Mr. Yermansky gives a most detailed account of Mr. Gushka’s
book, but not once does he indicate that he disagrees with him! As if a man
who considers himself a Marxist could identify himself with the wishy-washy
liberalism of a praiser of the commercial and industrial big-wigs!

Mr.Yermanskygoes even further than Mr. Gushka in the direction of
social-liberalismà laBrentano and

Sombart,[4]slightly touched up to look like Marxism.

“Theorganisations of the representative type,” writes Mr. Yermansky,
“are organisations of class struggle in its full scope and on a national
(partly even international) scale. The material provided by the
questionnaire produces a picture of a practically boundless range of
questions discussed by the organisations. The activity of our organisations
extends to almost all problems of state importance, as was justly stated by
the Yekaterinoslav Stock-Exchange Committee.” That is how Mr. Yermansky
talks in a magazine that claims to be Marxist! This talk is blatantly false
from beginning to end. It substitutes theliberalconcept of class
struggle for that of the class struggle in the Marxian sense. It proclaims
as being of national and state importance the very thing which lacks the
main feature of what concerns thewholenation and thewholestate: the organisation of state power and the entire sphere
of “state” administration, state policy, etc.

Seethe lengths to which Mr. Yermansky goes in his misguided zeal. In
disputing the view that “the capitalist bourgeoisie in Russia” (he means
the big commercial and industrial bourgeoisie) is flabby, underdeveloped,
and so on, he seeks a “contemporary formula” that would express “the
actual position of the big bourgeoisie in Russia

Andwhat happens? It turns out that Mr. Yermansky sees this formula in
the words uttered by Avdakov in the Board of Mining during a debate (mark
this!) on the adoption of anew organisation 01 mining congresses with
an elected chairman. The practice (in Russia) has been such, said
Avdakov, “that so far no one has ever hampered us in anything”.

“That,”writes Mr. Yermansky, “is a formula which fits
   contemporary conditions to a T.”

“That,”writes Mr. Yermansky, “is a formula which fits
   contemporary conditions to a T.”

Weshould think so! As far as the organisation of mining congresses is
concerned, no one has hampered the dull-witted merchants who are
submissively bearing the yoke of the political privileges of the landlords!
Instead of ridiculing the bombastic

Kit Kitych[5]Avdakov, Mr. Yermansky strains every nerve in his zeal to
assure people that Avdakov is not a Kit Kitych, that he has given a
“contemporary formula” which expresses “the actual position of the bigbourgeoisie in Russia”! As for Kit Kitych Avdakov, he is the perfect
image of a portly butler who never dared even to think of becoming full
masterin place ofhis lord and who is touched by the fact that
his lord permits him to confer in the servants’ hall with the chambermaid,
the cook, etc.

Thefollowing tirade in Mr. Yermansky’s article shows that it is this
difference between the status of the butler and the master that he refuses
to understand:

“Hereagain,” he writes, “it will not be superfluous
   to make one comparison. Everybody remembers how emphatically and with how
   much publicity, so to speak, the aspirations of the Zemstvo members ‘to
   take part in the affairs of internal administration’ were described as
   ‘absurd dreams’. On the other hand, the St. Petersburg Stock-Exchange
   Committee, which declared, as early as the pre-constitution period, that it
   was necessary

   ‘to extend as far as possible the right of the stock-exchange societies
   [note this!] to take part in administrative affairs’, was fully justified
   in adding:

   ‘Such a right of the stock-exchange societies would not constitute any
   innovation, for the stock-exchange societies already enjoy it in part.’
   What was ‘an absurd dream’ in the case of others, was no dream, but
   reality, an element of a real constitution, in the case of the
   representatives of big capital.”

“Hereagain,” he writes, “it will not be superfluous
   to make one comparison. Everybody remembers how emphatically and with how
   much publicity, so to speak, the aspirations of the Zemstvo members ‘to
   take part in the affairs of internal administration’ were described as
   ‘absurd dreams’. On the other hand, the St. Petersburg Stock-Exchange
   Committee, which declared, as early as the pre-constitution period, that it
   was necessary

   ‘to extend as far as possible the right of the stock-exchange societies
   [note this!] to take part in administrative affairs’, was fully justified
   in adding:

   ‘Such a right of the stock-exchange societies would not constitute any
   innovation, for the stock-exchange societies already enjoy it in part.’
   What was ‘an absurd dream’ in the case of others, was no dream, but
   reality, an element of a real constitution, in the case of the
   representatives of big capital.”

“Was”,but not quite, Mr. Yermansky! Your “comparison” betrays your
inability or unwillingness to distinguish between the aspiration (of the
landlord class) to becomefullmaster itself and the aspiration
(of the village elder who has grown rich) to consult with the master’sother servants. There is a world of difference between the two.

Itis only natural that Mr. Yermansky should arrive at conclusions
entirely in the spirit of Larin. The representatives of big capital in
Russia, says Mr. Yermansky, “long ago won the position of a ruling class
in the full sense of the term”.

Thisis false from beginning to end. Mr. Yermansky has forgottenboththe autocracyandthe fact that power and revenues
are still in the hands of the feudal landlords. He is wrong in thinking
that“onlyin the late nineteenth and the early twentieth
century” did our autocracy “cease to beexclusivelyfeudal”. This “exclusiveness” no longer existed as far back as the epoch
of Alexander II, compared with the epoch of Nicholas I. But it is
absolutely impermissible to confuse a feudal regime which is shedding the
qualitiesthat make itexclusivelyfeudal, and which is taking steps towards
a bourgeois monarchy, with “the complete domination of the representatives
of big capital”

Theeditors ofNasha Zarya, as usual, added a
little “reservation” to Mr. Yermansky’s article, saying that the author
“underestimates the importance which direct participation in the exercise
of political power has for it” (the big bourgeoisie).

Themethod of making little reservations has firmly established itself
among the liquidators. In a series of articles, Yermansky expounds in great
detail views on the class struggle that are inspired by liberalism. What
the magazine preaches is liberalism. As for the “reminiscences of the
glorious days” of Marxism, they are squeezed into two lines of a footnote!
The readers ofNasha Zaryaare being brought up in the spirit of
liberalism, which is substituted for Marxism, and the editors wash their
hands of it—by a little reservation, in just the same way as in the CadetRech.[6]

Thepoint is not only that Mr. Yermansky “underestimates” a certain
aspect of the issue. The point is that his view on the class struggle is
wrong from beginning to end. The point is that he makes a fundamental
mistake in appraising the social organisation of the autocracy. We pointed
out long ago, and shall not cease to point out, thatthisquestioncannot be evadedby ridiculing “the answers of 1908” (or 1912),
etc. This questioncannotbe evaded in any political writing that
is at all serious.

Thedifference of opinion between Yermansky and Larin, on the one hand,
and the editors ofNasha Zarya, on the other, is a difference
between frank and, in their own way, honest liquidators and the diplomats
of liquidationism. We should have no illusions on this score.

Larinwrote that the state power in our country has already become
bourgeois. Therefore the workers must organise, not in expectation of a
revolution (and not “for revolution”, he added), but for taking part in
the constitutional renovation of the country. Yermansky, who approaches the
questionfrom adifferentangle, repeats in substance Larin’sfirstpremise; but he only hints at the conclusions, without
stating them plainly.

Martov“corrected” Larin in the same way as the editors ofNasha
Zaryaare correcting Yermansky, saying that the state power is not
bourgeois as yet, and it will be “enough” for the workers to seize on the
contradiction between constitutionalism and absolutism.

Thusthe result is agreement between Martov (plus the editors ofNasha Zarya) and Larin-Yermansky as regards the conclusions, which
is quite natural considering their agreement on the fundamental premises of
the liberal view on labour policy.

We,however, still believe this view to be fundamentally wrong. The
point is not whether Yermansky “underestimates” or Martov
“overestimates” the “leftward trend” of the Guchkovs, Ryabushinskys and
Co. It is not whether Yermansky “underestimates” or Martov
“overestimates” the “importance which direct participation in the
exercise of political power has for thebourgeoisie”. The point
is thatbothof them not only “underestimate”, but simply do notappreciatethe importance which “direct participation in the
exercise of political power” has for theworking class, and for
the bourgeois democracy that is following its lead and is free from the
present-day waverings of the liberals! Both of them have in mind onlyone“political power” and forget about theother.

Bothof them are looking up to the top and do not see the lower
ranks. But if a dozen Ryabushinskys and a hundred Milyukovs are grumbling
and giving vent to liberal indignation, thatmeansthat tens of
millions of petty bourgeois and of “small folk” in all walks of life feel
that their condition is unbearable. And these millions, too, are a
potential source of “political power”. Only the rallying of such
democratic elements against the Rights and regardless of the vacillation of
the liberals can “solve” the problems with which history has confronted
Russia since the beginning of the twentieth century.

[1]Thearticle “A Questionnaire on the Organisations of Big Capital”
appeared inProsveshcheniyeNos. 5–7.

Prosveshcheniye(Enlightenment) was a socio-political
and literary monthly published by the Bolsheviks legally in St. Petersburg
from December 1911 to June 1914. It was founded on directions from Lenin to
replace the Bolshevik periodical,Mysl(Moscow), closed down by
the authorities. Lenin, who was abroad, guidedProsveshcheniyeby
editing articles for it and maintaining a regular correspondence with the
members of its Editorial Board. The periodical published “The Three
Sources and Three Component Paris of Marxism”, “Critical Remarks on the
National Question”, “The Right of Nations to Self-Determination”, and
other works by Lenin.

TheEditorial Board ofProsveshcheniyeincluded
M. A. Savelyev, M. S. Olminsky and A. I. Yelizarova. The art and literature
section was edited by Maxim Gorky. The circulation reached 5,000 copies.

Prosveshcheniyewas closed down by the authorities on the eve
of the First World War. In the autumn of 1917, however, it, resumed
publication, but only one (double) issue was brought out; it contained
Lenin’s works “Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?” and “Revision of
the Party Programme”.

[2]Gushka,A. 0., andA. Yermansky, mentioned further on
in the article, were pen-names of 0. A. Kogan, a Menshevik liquidator.

[3]Article87of the Fundamental State Laws authorised the
Council of Ministers during the Duma recesses to submit Bills directly to
the tsar for approval.

[4]Brentano,Lujo(1844–1931)—a German bourgeois economist,
one of the main exponents of “professorial socialism”, who advocated
renunciation of the class struggle and held it possible to resolve the
social contradictions of capitalist society and reconcile the interests of
the workers and capitalists by organising reformist trade unions and
introducing factory legislation. On the agrarian question he upheld the
reactionary theory of the “stability” of small-scale agriculture and the
pseudo-scientific bourgeois “law of diminishing returns”. In the closing
years of his life he was an outspoken apologist of imperialism.

Sombart,Werner(1863–1941)—a German vulgar bourgeois
economist, a prominent ideologist of German imperialism. One of the
theoreticians of “social-liberalism” in the early period of his activity,
he later became an open enemy of Marxism and described capitalism as a
harmonious economic system.

[5]KitKitych, orTit Titych, a character in Alexander
Ostrovsky’s play,Shouldering Another’s Troubles. He typifies an
uneducated, stupid and barbaric petty tyrant.

[6]Rech(Speech)—a daily newspaper, the central organ
of the Cadet Party, published in St. Petersburg from February 1906. It was
closed down by the Military Revolutionary Committee under the Petrograd
Soviet on October 26 (November 8), 1917.